Leonardo da Vinci designed an organ gun with 33 small cannons.
The weapon, also called a triple-barrelled cannon or volley gun, arranged many gun barrels in three rows. The layout resembled the pipes of a musical organ, which explains the name. Its intended advantage was to fire a concentrated volley and then allow one row to cool or be reloaded while another was used.
The design was part of Leonardo’s military engineering work in the late fifteenth century. It should not be confused with a machine gun in the modern sense: the weapon depended on separate gunpowder charges and did not provide continuous automatic fire.
Leonardo’s drawing also reflects the limits of Renaissance artillery. Recoil, transport, aiming, and reloading would all have posed serious practical problems. The 33-barrel arrangement was an attempt to increase firepower through organization rather than through a modern rapid-fire mechanism.